Education
University of Michigan
BS Neuroscience 2016
BA Sociology 2016
Rhode Island School of Design
MFA Illustration 2024

Group Exhibitions 2023

New New England — Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
A Room With A View — Vardan Gallery, Los Angeles, California
FEMBOT  — The Hole, New York City, New York
Soft Fragments — Land To Sea, Brooklyn, New York
Swelter — Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Finish Fetish — Collaborations Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
A Happy Beginning — Latitude Gallery, New York City, New York
Molding — Stilllife, New York City, New York
Fractals of Fabulation — Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

2022

Double Shift — LARTIQUE, Paris, France
No Longer Transparent — Gelman Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island

Awards

2022— Society of Presidential Fellows— Rhode Island School of Design



Publications

New American Painting #165 2023
White Hot Magazine 2023
WOW Mag UK Issue 05, 06 2021, 2022
Raydar Magazine Nov. 2022
Shoutout LA Nov. 2022
Select Clients

Nike, Vice, MSNBC




Ji Zou

e: azou@risd.edu
ig: ji.zouu


Practice


Hmong Chinese American artist practicing painting, illustration, and sometimes video art. Often thinking about the fragility of reality, the connection between waking and dream worlds, what is invisible but felt, what is self, and what it means to love.  Their practice is diaristic and self reflexive and often draws from  meditations, dreams, memories, and imagined futures. Through their work, they seek to get closer— closer to others, closer to being, closer to truth— by recognition of the ever present gaps and voids.  

Biography


Raised in suburban Michigan, they grew up in a cross cultural, polygynous family. During their undergraduate studies in Neuroscience and Sociology, they became interested in meditation practices introduced to them by professors and friends. In their first 10 day silent meditation, painting was the only thing they could think of. Shortly after, they moved to New York City and began to work in commercial illustration and the restaurant industry. They continued to experiment as a digital painter for 6 years before attending Rhode Island School of Design for their MFA in illustration.
Since beginning their painting practice in 2022, their work has been presented widely in group exhibitions at Collaborations, Copenhagen; The Hole, New York; Vardan Gallery, LA; and more. They were awarded the Presidential Fellowship at RISD (2022) and published as the cover artist of New American Paintings (165).